One Day
by DamaDeHonor
Summary: Isabel has a vision of her death, she runs away, she runs into Sam and Dean at a gas station, she runs into the pavement and gets a bloody nose. What else is gonna happen to her on this fabulous day?
1. Dawn

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural, although Isabel belongs to me. So please ask beforehand if you wanna borrow her. Thanks. :)

**- - - **

**One Day**

**1 - "Dawn"**

Isabel had her things packed before she even knew she was leaving.

That morning, she'd woken up from a nightmare. A man with black-filled eyes had flung her across her dorm room with inhuman strength. She'd hit the wall and fallen, broken--slumped on the floor, dead.

And when she'd awakened, she'd jumped out of bed and started flinging things into a duffel bag she dragged out of the closet. She wasn't even sure she was thinking it through, at that point. When she finally _did_ think, her brain dryly stated, _'Sure, I didn't even really want to finish college anyway.'_

She'd just go home, back to her parents' house, where the silence would surely kill her before any monster could get to her. Yeah, that'd work. And she was out the door, shrugging into her coat, as she tried to keep hold of her duffel bag with the other hand, and walked down the hallway outside her room, all at the same time.

_'Yeah, that'll have to work,'_ she continued the thought, frantically trying to keep her mind thinking _anything_ because if she stopped for one second, the fear would keep her frozen there. And if she stayed, she was probably going to end up staying for eternity.

Pushing those morbid contemplations out of her mind, she finished putting on the coat and hefted the duffel bag onto her shoulder. She'd only taken the bare necessities, leaving behind her school books, photos, other odds and ends. She didn't have much experience with these precognitive dreams of hers, so she didn't know how much time she had before that... thing showed up.

It was barely getting light outside, and she wished that she had a flashlight, but it was for her peace of mind and not for convenience's sake 'cause she could see all right, but she wished that it wasn't so creepily dim still.

Her quick breathing fogged on the dewey air, and she nearly slipped on the wet concrete, as she made her way through the student parking lot to her car. The Cavalier wasn't the car she'd envisioned having when she first got her driver's license. Her mother had always had one of the simple, dependable vehicles, so Isabel had fantasized about yellow Jeeps and black Nissans.

But when she'd gotten older, she'd realized she just wanted something that wouldn't kick the bucket, with her driving in it in some strange place that she would possibly have to walk out of, with no one walking beside her. Sensibility always seemed to win out with her... that and cowardice.

After unlocking the door of the light-blue car with trembling hands, Isabel then reached back and unlocked the rear door, then opened it and chucked her duffel bag onto the floor mats. She relocked and closed the rear door, then got in, buckled herself up, and started the engine.

Looking in the rear-view mirror and the side mirror before backing out of her parking space, she wondered, _'Okay, Miss Expedient, what about gas money?'_

She'd brought all the money she had, but she didn't have a job, so it was just the five-hundred dollars her parents had sent to her last, with a quick note that said, _'From Dad and I. Use it for books or whatever you need. Love, Mom.'_

Five-hundred dollars could maybe get her to her parents' if she only stopped for gas and slept in her car. She just wondered if she was capable of starving herself for that long. _'Guess I'll just have to ration my 7/11 snacks.'_ She gave a scattered, nervous little giggle as she pulled onto the road and started driving away from her future.

She had no other choice, but she couldn't help the bitterness that erupted in her belly and seeped into her chest. Because she knew her mother wasn't going to see it that way, even if she _could_ explain to her about the dream. It would just seem like another excuse to her--another way for Isabel to call it quits.

- - -

It was miles later that Isabel wondered why she'd been so hasty. The few visions that she'd had before were usually vague and rarely came true in the way she thought they would. But she'd had them since she was a teenager, and knew that she shouldn't just take a dream like that lightly.

Besides that, about a year ago, something strange happened. She started to get these headaches--migraines, she decided in retrospect. And after they finally stopped, whenever she touched something old or used, she'd get flashes off of it, like a slide-show of its history or something.

Needless to say, she avoided touching anything she didn't absolutely have to after that. It was a good thing it didn't work on people. Then she could've been like one of those tv-psychics, Madam Isabel. Hah.

And how useful was this stupid gift-curse anyway? _'Oh, I can touch an old shoe and see all the smelly feet that used to wear it!'_ Yeah, that was great. When she'd bought her Cavalier, she'd forgotten that little rule. It was a slightly used car, and the last owner had picked his nose. She made sure to clean it extra well, just in case the dealership people had missed a booger or two.

As serious as her situation was, Isabel couldn't stifle the hysterical giggle all her morose thoughts had caused. When she didn't stop laughing for a minute or two, she decided she might possibly need to stop and get a snack or something. So she sat up straighter and kept a look-out for a gas station or quickiemart.

When she finally found one, she needed to pee bad enough that she used the restroom, first, before going into the store to find some goodies or refilling the tank. She pulled the car around to the gas pumps after that, turned off the engine, and put back the gas she'd depleted so far. If only it was that easy to recharge _herself_.

It came out to twenty-odd dollars, and Isabel understood now why her mother had ranted about gas prices so often. When she capped up her gas tank again, she went in to pay, since all she had was cash--not credit to use at the self-pay thingy. She decided to get a drink now and a snack down the road later on. _'Bleh,'_ she thought, _'Rationing sucks.'_

That was when she saw the vintage black car drive up into the gas station. She was instantly hit with a pang of homesickness, reminded of her brother's car. This one was different, more old-fashioned, and yet cooler in a way, she tried to tell herself, and maybe that's why her eyes kept traveling to 9 o'clock, anyway.

And then, as she placed herself in the small line to the cashier's desk, her eyes _really_ became glued to the car, or the two young men who emerged from it. Her brain immediately said, 'Hot!' and her eyes roved up and down, and then she refused the little beggars and forced them front and center. _'Bad, Isabel, bad. Lust is a_ sin.'

There was no _way_ guys like that were anything but trouble, she tried to tell herself, and besides, they were probably gay--two guys road-tripping together and all... yeah, gay, that was it. Off limits. Yep.

And then the door's bell chimed, and her traitorous gaze darted toward the sound. Oh. My. Tall. Tall and awesome. Tall, awesome, and giving her a wink. 'I imagined that, right?' she barely managed to think, seeing as she had no breath left, and she'd suddenly become a cave-woman. Her face flamed whatever shade it turned when she was embarrassed, and she decided to ignore whatever that look had been.

She hobbled up to the counter after the guy in front of her left, and muttered to the cashier something about "... this... blue car... outside... yeah."

The woman gave her a sympathetic smile, or maybe Isabel was just imagining it, and quickly rung up the charges. Isabel found her hands trembling, when she fumblingly took her change and receipt then turned to go. She saw the handsome man rummaging through the unhealthy food snacks, and wished him a spare-tire, around his middle, out of annoyance that she couldn't do the same.

_'He doesn't really look like the kind of guy who can get a spare tire, though,'_ her stupid observant side taunted her. He looked more like the type that did manual labor so much they needed the extra calories.

As she crossed to her car, out in the parking lot, trying to will away her red face, she saw the other young man filling up the gas tank of that sexy car. And her brain practically died.

Taller, cuter, moody, moody eyes. That was all she registered before she couldn't look any longer for fear her eyes would burn and catch fire to her own brains. But as she tried to figure out which way to take to get to her car, which was still parked near the gas tank, behind the strangers' metallic beast, a wicked idea took hold of her food and sleep-deprived brain.

She walked by the car's front, and as she was passing along its side, she traced the fingers of her left hand along the metal. And her mind stopped. _'Oh, big, freakin' mistake,'_ was her last thought before a flood of images washed all coherent cogitation out of her head.

The last one floored her, literally--a huge diesel truck slamming against the side of this poor baby, and its passengers inside, three men, two of them familiar--the one in the backseat that had winked at her, and the moody one in the driver's seat, and the last, an older man, sitting shotgun. All three of them had been looking mighty roughed up even before the diesel truck hit them, but afterward...?

"Ooouuuuch." Her nose hurt, and she had the vague sensation that she should still be standing upright, but instead, she was lying here on the concrete, the energy-drink bottle rolling away from the fingertips of her right hand...

"Miss? Miss?" Someone was asking her, and they came into view a moment later--the moody, fluffy-haired guy. "Are you all right?" he questioned, as he knelt beside her and reached for her shoulder, with an uncertain frown.

"I'm..." Isabel started to say "fine" and then realized her nose was bleeding, when she saw the puddle on the concrete, as she lifted her aching head. "I'm bleeding," she said, idiotically, trying to lift her fingers to her nose.

The guy actually smiled a little, irritating her already frazzled mood. "It's not funny," she whined. "It _hurts_!"

"Sammy, what'd you go and do?" a voice came from above them, and Isabel wished that she'd been knocked unconscious because of the mortification she was about to experience.

"Whoa," the flirt said, "You _do_ understand what 'hitting on a girl' means, dontcha?"

The moody-one narrowed his eyes. "Yes, _Dean_, I do--she fell on her nose."

The flirtatious-one gave his friend an amused look. _'Oh, God,'_ she thought, _'This can't get any worse.'_ And then it did--

"I saw you touching the Impala, earlier," "Sammy" stated, almost flatly, "Just before you fell. If you had your hand on the car, why'd you lose your balance anyway?"

Suspicious, wasn't he? "I-I-I," she stuttered, darting her gaze back and forth between the two men. "I need to go." She got up, swaying a little, and edged backward when Sammy rose also. He was so gosh-darned _tall_.

"Sam?" Dean questioned, his voice suddenly very dark and serious. Was that sort of temperament-fluctuation even _possible_ outside of Japanese anime?

And then Isabel made the mistake of fumbling behind herself for balance. And the car "spoke" to her again:

She saw the boys riding down a dark road, a frightened woman in the backseat. A voice spoke from the static-y radio, _'She's mine... she's... mine.'_

"Oh, holy crap," Isabel muttered, yanking her hands away from the vehicle. "Spooky--! Where--? What sort of job do you guys _have_?" she finally managed to splutter.

The two men, who'd drawn shoulder to shoulder while she'd been "seeing things," gave each other a quick glance, then as if by mutual consent, the taller one asked, "Did you have a vision?"

"A-A vision?" she returned, wondering how it was possible they could have guessed. And then she remembered the flashes from the car. "I should go," she said, lifting her hand to her nose, trying to dab away some of the blood.

"Well, at least let us take a look at that..." Sam requested. She glared at him.

A second ago, they were laughing at her. Now they suddenly thought it was serious? She dabbed again. For all she knew, they could both be a couple of creepy serial killers on the run from the FBI, or something, and digging up bones while they were at it, and lighting fire to them, too. She should call the cops, or something, but on second thought, she was too wussy, and she didn't have time for this craziness anyway.

"I don't-- I _can't_," she said, voice going all high and squeaky, as if it wasn't high enough already without the pure adrenaline added. "I'm... running away...You guys could be-- I mean--" Flustered beyond reason, she kept alternately tucking her unruly hair behind her ears and touching her nose. "You're strangers, and-- The last thing I need to do is get in _more_ trouble!"

Apparently, they dealt with hysterical females a _lot_ in their line of work because Sam just pursed his expressive lips, and Dean raised an eyebrow. Isabel seethed, then did her best to walk in the direction of _her_ car--her _safe_, boring, non-supernatural car. That was about the same time Sam said, clearly, "I have visions too."


	2. Noon

**2 - "Noon"**

"I have visions too."

Isabel froze, slowly turned, her hand to her injured nose, also serving to obscure her injured pride, and stared at Sam. He looked sincere, but then, she got the feeling he always looked that way and found herself wondering how good a liar he actually was.

"Visions?" she asked, ever the quick one.

He nodded, glanced nervously off to the side. She followed his gaze and saw the cashier from before peering at them through the door of the 7/11. She looked concerned, Isabel observed, and then her eyes widened in realization. She could've smacked herself, but she decided that would be a bad idea, considering the bloody nose.

"We should probably take this little chat somewhere private," Dean suggested, also making note of the cashier.

Like heck she was going off with two, strange guys somewhere out of the public eye. Isabel frowned at them, lips pursed, then made a motion toward her car. "I'll just follow you..."

Sam and Dean--wow, it was really easy to think of them in conjunction--looked at each other significantly. She frowned, thinking sternly, _'Yeah, I don't trust you. Deal.'_

Dean frowned back at her, taking offense at her obvious distrust, but shrugged and turned away toward the car. He probably thought she was a snob...

Isabel, despite ears burning bright, rolled her eyes. She wasn't going to worry about what he thought of her, she claimed silently, then turned, marching toward her car. She noticed her drink rolling on the concrete. Pulling a disgusted face, she went back for it--snatching it up with a challenging look cast in the boys' direction. If she'd been in Elementary School, that would have been the equivalent of sticking out her tongue and saying, "So there."

Sam was already going around to the passenger's side, but Dean, who was already sitting in the driver's seat--window down, and watching Isabel in the side-mirror, tilted his chin up at her and smirked a little. God, he was getting on her nerves, she realized, and gritted her teeth as she went to get in her car.

She pulled out of the gas station's parking lot after them, tail-gating until they reached a little restaurant. They parked, and Isabel checked her reflection in the rear-view mirror before getting out. Man, she looked horrible, she saw, and rummaged around for a Kleenex, finding the box in the backseat. She spat on the two sheets she pulled out and started rubbing at the gory-looking blood under her nose and all over her chin.

A moment later, she jumped out of her skin when Dean tapped on her window. To get him back, she opened her door too quickly, making him back up to avoid the deaths of his future off-spring.

While Dean glared at her, and Sam eyed them both in the background with nervous amusement, she snapped, "Sorry," not really meaning it. "But I look like a mess. Do you want the people in there thinking you guys beat me up and kidnapped me?" She thought it was a little funny, but Dean didn't seem to share her sentiments, so she kept the irritated smile off of her face.

"Fine, whatever. We'll be inside. Sam--" Dean turned to his... friend, and nodded his head sharply to the side to indicate that Sam should follow him into the restaurant.

Isabel finished cleaning her aching, but no longer bleeding, nose, and locked up her car before going inside the little family restaurant. She glanced around, fidgeting nervously with the cuffs of her jacket, until she spotted them. She made her way around the tables, and took a bit too long deciding which man she should slide into the booth next to.

Finally, she settled on slipping in beside Sam, and sat there, eyeing the menu on the table in front of her. _'Man, am I hungry,'_ she thought, and before she could stop herself, she fingered the edge of the menu and flipped it open with trembling hands, and licked her lips to keep from drooling. The last person that had touched this menu had been an old man, whose hands had also trembled, but his from age. He'd joked with the pretty waitress, and his wife had smilingly tolerated it.

About that time, Isabel realized she'd left her drink in the car and wished she'd brought it in. At least then, she could've dealt with her parched throat. Not to mention, she was sweating like crazy, and her head was starting to ache.

"So," Dean said, a bit too cheerfully. "Visions. Have any lately?"

"Dean," Sam said, diplomatically, "Let's at least make introductions."

"I already know your names," she said before Dean could reply with whatever snarky remark he had lying in wait behind that ironic smile.

"Oh," Sam said, sounding a tad embarrassed. She glanced up and to the side at him, saw that he was pursing his lips uncomfortably.

She smiled. "I'm Isabel Villareal. You can pronounce it 'villuh-real' if you want. Anyway, I don't really have visions--just flashes of objects' pasts, when I touch them. What about you?" She finished up her speech, then flashed him a too-innocent grin. All the while, in the back of her mind, she realized she was nervous and acting like an idiot because of it.

"Good lord, where'd you learn to talk so much," Dean muttered under his breath, and her back stiffened in response.

"Like you're one to talk," Sam told him, bluntly, which rewarded him with a glare and a very ticked-off, "Why are you takin' _her_ side?"

"It's called being _polite_, Dean," Sam returned, "You should try it sometime."

Isabel felt so uncomfortable she started to say something silly to distract them, when the waitress came up and asked them what they'd like to order. Isabel ducked her head, and murmured, "Just water, please."

"Are you sure?" the woman asked, and Isabel looked up to see the waitress giving her a sweet smile. She started to nod, scratching at the edge of the menu, nervously. Every nerve in her body was screaming at her--"Just eat something!" But then Sam briefly touched her hand and said to the waitress, "We just need a few more minutes, that all."

Isabel blinked at him, startled, and saw that he was giving the girl a polite smile. _'Innocent act,'_ she thought, uncharitably, but felt bad right afterward, knowing that he was probably trying to spare her embarrassment or something. That was when she realized how nice he'd been to her from the beginning, and she started to wonder why.

_'Man, you have a suspicious mind,'_ she told herself, wryly, _'He's just being polite, like he said.'_

The waitress smiled back and nodded, excused herself, and went off to go check on another table, nearby. "Don't you have any money?" Sam surprised Isabel again, by asking.

"I _do_," she said, all of her self-defense mechanisms kicking in. "I'm just being frugal." Oh, great excuse there, she thought, right afterward. Not to mention, she came out sounding superbly uptite. Dang it.

"Oh, please," Dean said, under his breath, and her ears started burning again. Why was he getting to her this way!

Sam said, while she was glaring daggers at her new nemesis, "We'll get it this time, don't worry about it."

She stared at him, mouth hanging open. "I can't-- I mean... You sure? I don't want to be..." She darted a glance at Dean, who was giving Sam an annoyed look. "I don't wanna irritate your boyfriend," she finished lamely. She was surprised her mouth wasn't large enough to fit _two_ feet, by this time.

Sam laughed, while Dean exclaimed, "Boyfr--!" he glanced around, then hissed, "Boyfriend? We're _brothers_. I swear, the next person who assumes we're..." he waved his hand, emphatically, making a "you know" face, "...I'm gonna geld them."

"What if she's a girl?" Isabel questioned, innocently, finally unable to restrain the urge to bite back.

Sam rolled his eyes and sighed deeply, "Stop, you two. You're worse than school-children." What was he saying? That this was a round of "pull-the-pigtails"?

"All right," Isabel mumbled, "Sorry... I'll try to behave, since you guys _are_ paying for my lunch." She frowned, the throbbing in her head increasing, and rubbed the back of her neck where the pain seemed to have originated.

Dean's subsequent look was amused, while Sam frowned in concern. "Isabel, you look a little flushed..." He touched the back of his hand to her forehead, thwarting her efforts to dodge away from him, probably because his arm was so danged long. "And your skin feels clammy--are you nauseated?" He wondered, clinically.

Isabel tried to ignore the pounding in her head long enough to see what her stomach felt like, then placed a hand over it and grimaced. "Maybe a little," she admitted.

"What is it?" asked Dean, only curious--not concerned.

"Heat exhaustion," Sam diagnosed.

Isabel blinked. That would probably explain her earlier hysteria, too, right? Or not. She was just naturally hysterical. "Are you a doctor?" she asked Sam, wondering how he knew the symptoms.

"No, I'm--" Sam began, frowned uncomfortably, pursing his lips. "Never mind. You need to re-hydrate, and don't eat too fast, either. Take the jacket off, too. That might help."

Isabel grumbled, "It's cold in here."

"Stop babying her," Dean said, nearly at the same time.

For once, she agreed. "Yeah, I'm okay. Really."

The waitress returned around then, and Dean started off with his order, which gave Sam and Isabel time to look at their menus. _'Gosh, he eats a lot,'_ she thought to herself, while Dean was rattling off his orders.

"I'd like the number ten, please," she said, pointing it out on the menu. Her concentration wasn't too great right then, so she was hoping it was one of the cheaper meals. She would feel guilty for making them pay more, even _if_ Dean was getting on her last nerve.

"To drink?" the girl questioned.

"Uhm, just water," Isabel stuck with her original request.

"All right," the girl said cheerfully, after taking Sam's order, then went off again, probably to the back this time.

"About those visions...?" Sam ventured.

Isabel took a breath and thought about what she was going to say before starting. Otherwise, she knew, she would stammer and pause way too long while re-grouping her wayward thoughts. It partially came from being so shy and bad at communicating, but she was a little absent-minded too, therefore, prone to wool-gathering.

"They started about a year ago, with these really bad headaches, but they're really not visions. They're like flashes of things. If I touch something, like this salt-shaker," she let her fingers hover over the metal lid of the salt-shaker, for a moment. "Then I'll get a sort of picture of a person that used it last--what sort of person they were, what they were doing at the time they used the shaker."

"You said you were running away," Dean pointed out.

Isabel felt cold for the first time since the heat had started pounding on her through the windshield of her car. "Uhm... The flashes started with headaches, but I've always had these weird little dreams that come true. They're not usually literal, but this one..." She shivered, staring down at the faux wood surface of the table. "It scared me."

"Why?" Sam questioned, "What did you dream?"

She looked up at him, swallowing to try and wet her dry mouth. She licked her lips and managed to get out, "I dreamed that something killed me."


	3. Afternoon

**Spoilers:** The Pilot.**  
**

**Warnings/Rating:** PG-13 for suggestive dialogue. ;)**  
**

**- - - **

**3 - "Afternoon"**

"I dreamed that something killed me."

There was silence at their table, but the rest of the room went on in a surreal manner, making conversation and various dining noises--clinking of forks on plates, glasses clunking back onto tables, children yelling happily and tearfully, chairs scraping, scattered laughter...

"Hm," Dean finally said, "That's nice."

"I have visions of people dying," Sam volunteered. He was looking pretty disturbed.

"Do you have visions too?" Isabel wondered of Dean, a little amazed that there were other people like her, and thinking that maybe it ran in families.

"Me?" he asked, as if the idea were ludicrous.

"Yeah, you're right," she said, pretending to appraise him, "You don't seem like the type."

"Wh--?" he began, glowering. "You're teasing me." He realized aloud, frowning. "You really like to do that, don't you?"

Isabel blushed, ducked her head, finally realizing what she'd been doing all along--a bad habit of hers of choosing to hate the guy she liked, to avoid getting hurt later by unreturned feelings. "Oh, God, this is embarrassing," she mumbled. Then her eyes widened as she realized she'd spoken aloud. She groaned, "Oh, God, I should just buy myself a muzzle or something," and let her head thunk down on the table.

"Isabel," Sam said, sounding irritated, "As much as I'm enjoying this warped, little flirtation you've got goin' on with my brother, can we get back to the main topic?"

She turned her head so that she could peer up at him, mumbled, "Uh... I dreamed that this guy, uhm, with black, black eyes tossed me across my room. I hit the wall and..." she grimaced, sat up, and glanced nervously around. No one seemed to be paying attention to them, or to Isabel's previous antics. "And I guess it broke my neck 'cause I slid to the floor and died."

"Are you sure you weren't just knocked out?" Dean asked, in that know-it-all tone that made her want to pull her own hair out. She must have been glaring at him because he added, somewhat apologetically, "I'm just saying."

She shrugged. "I guess... I was scared, so maybe I missed something. After I had the dream, I knew I had to get out of there." She sighed, looking down at the table. "I wonder how long it'll take before they kick me out."

"Out of where?" Sam wondered.

Just then, another waitress showed up with their meals, stalling further conversation, for the time being. Isabel shrugged out of her coat and pulled it around, leaving it across her lap, then said a quick, mental prayer and dug in. A moment later, she realized the brothers were staring at her.

"What?" she asked, smiling nervously.

"You prayed?" Dean asked.

"Oh, yeah," she answered, "I was raised in church."

Sam and Dean blinked at her for a few moments, and Sam recovered first, "You're a Christian?"

She nodded, smiling at him with bemusement. Sam just took a thoughtful bite of his food, so she shrugged and returned to her own meal. It was Dean who spoke, now, conjecturing, "Maybe it can't make her go dark-side."

Sam started to nod. "Which would definitely explain why it'd try to kill you."

"Huh?" Isabel was having a little trouble following their logic. "The monster?"

Dean scoffed. "What you saw was a demon in a man's body--"

"Dean, wait," Sam called softly, but nevertheless, his tone had enough impact to halt his brother's words. Sam turned to her, setting down his fork, with a deliberate movement. "This is going to be disturbing to you."

She swallowed. "Okay...?"

"There's a demon--a yellow-eyed demon. We've had some... encounters with him, and he told us that he had plans for psychics. Psychics like you and me." He was so serious, telling her this paranormal conspiracy theory. That honest face, those sincere eyes. She didn't want to believe him, but they both pulled her right in, straight down the proverbial rabbit hole. "One man had dreams of the demon telling him to hurt people. He didn't... but it seemed like he was on his way there before he was... uhm, killed."

There was some story behind _that_ no doubt. "Do you have those sorts of dreams?" she asked, worriedly.

This time, both Sam _and_ Dean looked disturbed. "No," Sam answered and looked Isabel in the eyes, "No, I don't. Just the death-visions."

"That's bad enough, huh?" she joked, weakly. Sam offered her a small half-smile.

"But wasn't what's-his-face popping anti-depressants?" Dean pointed out, digging into his food, as if he were too used to this sort of talk for it to affect his apetite. But after seeing that look on his face, she didn't really believe it was anything but an act. "Maybe he was missing a few screws, already."

"Maybe," Sam shrugged. "But it's still an indication that the Demon wants to draw us over to his side in whatever 'coming war' there is."

"I'm not gonna argue with you about it, Sammy," Dean said, flatly, as if this were an old debate. Maybe it had something to do with how they'd reacted to her question. Then again, maybe she was just thinking too much.

Isabel shifted uncomfortably and tried for a change of topic, "So it decided it couldn't get to me and is trying to kill me instead?" It made a little sense to her now. Drawing from her religious background, she decided it would follow that a demon couldn't possess a "born-again" Christian.

"Maybe," Sam offered.

She bit her lip, and he added, "Are you... uhm..." What in the world had suddenly made him so uncomfortable, she wondered, cocking her eyebrow at him. "Uhm..." he tried again, "Are you...?"

"Sam, get to the point," Dean growled.

"Dean, I can't just--" Sam began, so Dean rolled his eyes and interrupted, "He's trying to ask if you're a virgin."

Isabel's mouth dropped open, and her face flamed. She wanted to splutter, but there was nothing in her mouth to splutter _with_. Sam, aghast, hurried to say, "He means, are you chaste?"

She calmed down a tad bit, then nodded, glaring across the table at Dean. "Jerk," she told him. "I can _tell_ you're not a virgin." Oh, man, had she really just said that?

Dean smirked. "There you go, teasing me again." She had. Oops.

And now that she'd let him get the upperhand, he was going to hold it over her head until the day she died, or they parted ways, one or the other.

"Shuddup," she mumbled, and pretended to turn her attention to her food. Dean snickered, and Sam sighed loudly.

"Then it's settled," he said, "You're practically a nun, so this thing can't turn you dark-side. So it's trying to keep you out of the Big War by killing you off beforehand."

"That's the working theory, anyway," Dean added cheerfully.

Man, did he have too much fun with all this stuff or what? She peered up at him out from beneath a trail of curls that had fallen in her face. He was munching away at the third course, happily stuffing his face, oblivious to all outward appearances. But he was a guy who hid things well, wasn't he?

She had the insane urge to reach out and touch his wrist-watch, but decided that was an even more stupid idea than touching their car had been. So instead, she settled for asking, "Are you guys... used to this stuff? I mean, uh, I saw some things when I touched the car. Do you make a living out of helping people with... supernatural stuff?"

"Actually," Sam replied, "We don't so much as make a living, as we do it because there aren't many people who'd want to, even if they knew about all the things that _really _go bump in the night."

"And we sure as heck don't get paid," Dean grouched, good-naturedly.

"I..." she said, the reality striking her nearly senseless then, "I always knew there was stuff--demons, angels... I just didn't think I'd ever run into one."

"Well, you haven't run into it yet," Dean said, "And we're gonna try and keep it that way."

"I was going to my parents," she stated, voice dull. She always got like this when she talked about them.

"I was going to ask you if they were still living," Sam said, thoughtfully. He looked a bit sad, too, and she touched his arm before she thought about it. It wasn't his _bare_ arm that she touched, or she would've been fine--it was his sleeve. And she should've known there was a chance he'd had the tan windbreaker for more than a year.

A girl, burning on the ceiling, a red slash across the waist of her white, satin night-gown. Blood, dripping onto Sam's forehead, his eyes opening, growing wide. Gasping. _"No! Jess!"_ Dean breaking down the front door, calling his name, dragging Sam away from the fire that was spreading across the ceiling. _"No! No! Jess! Jess! No!"_ Trying to fight his brother--failing.

Nauseated, Isabel jerked her hand away and murmured something about using the restroom. "Gotta go..." She hurried away from the table, found the ladies' room, went into a stall, and crouched down by a toilet, fully expecting to throw up. She didn't, but her vision swam for awhile, and her stomach clenched, and her head pounded.

"Are you all right?" a strange woman questioned from behind her.

"Uhm..." Isabel answered, glancing over her shoulder at the older woman. "I was... out in the heat too long. I'll be all right."

The woman nodded, and smiled politely, then edged out of the facilities. Isabel bit back a sardonic smile at the typical bystander behavior. Finally, she got to her feet and splashed some water on her face, then patted it dry with some brown paper-towels, which she threw in the trash before leaving.

It was easy to find Sam and Dean, since they were already at the check-out counter. "How're you feeling?" Sam wondered, greeting her with a small, sympathetic smile and handing over her coat.

"Okay," she said, returning the smile plus some, taking the coat and slipping into it.

Dean was handed back his change and receipt by the female cashier, who was obviously flirting with him, and he wadded them in his hand and stuffed them in his leather jacket, giving her a lecherous grin in return. He turned to Sam and Isabel afterward, wondering, "Ready?"

"Where we going?" she asked, offering him a saccharine smile.

But he was onto her by now, and he only smirked back. "Motel--gonna get that demon to stop trying to kill you." He waggled his eyebrows so everyone knew just exactly what he meant.

Sam gave him a look of disgust, and walked on ahead of them out of the restaurant. Isabel blushed, shook her head, smiled wryly and followed after Sam.


	4. Evening

**Spoilers:** "Skin", "Dead in the Water", sundry episodes... I don't know their names because, alas, I do not have them. :(

**- - - **

**4 - "Evening"**

Never before had Isabel experienced the novelty of checking into a seedy motel with two strange men.

Too say the least, the manager was a little suspicious. He actually leered at her, and she glared down at her feet as she walked away with Sam, while Dean finished paying for the room.

"Jerk," she muttered under her breath, and Sam offered her one of those small, amused smiles. She was starting to get used to that look, and realized she'd been on the defensive side when she'd first seen it.

It didn't mean he was laughing up his sleeve at her, he was just sympathizing, that's all.

As they waited near the car, a Chevy Impala, she finally noticed, absently, Sam put his hands in the pocket's of his jacket and asked her, "When you said that you couldn't go back, before, what did you mean?"

Isabel bit her lip and looked at the yellow parking lines on the concrete. "I, uhm," she said, toeing the gravel nervously, "I was at college. If I'm gone too long..." She trailed off and shrugged.

"You had a scholarship?" Sam wondered, and she looked up at his accepting expression. Huh. She didn't know why, but she'd been expecting scorn or something similiar.

Smiling ruefully, she nodded. "Yeah, and I'll lose it now, I guess."

Sam nodded, still not judging her. "I dropped out after--" There was pain hiding behind his calm, husky voice. "Then I came with my brother to help out with the 'family business.'" He grinned, a lopsided, unhappy smile, but nevertheless, accepting of his circumstances.

_'After Jess died,'_ she realized. The girl on the ceiling, with curling, blond hair... white nightgown stained by a red slash. She was probably dead before the fire even started, opened, horrified eyes not withstanding.

Isabel's gaze must have hazed over because Sam questioned, sharply, "You saw, didn't you? When you touched my arm, earlier?"

She blinked up at him, thinking it better to answer, "Saw what?" and smile innocently.

He frowned, blue eyes narrowed, but around then, Dean showed up and called, crowingly, "What are you two lovebirds doing standing around? I got the room key right here!" He waved a flashing, metal object in front of them and changed directions toward the motel rooms.

Isabel shrugged and smiled at Sam, with feigned denseness, and skipped ahead, trying to catch up with Dean. He stopped when he saw the right door number, and Isabel, a little distracted by her close call with Sam, bumped into him, nose first.

"Ow," she started to say, and began to lift her hand to her nose, when the images interrupted, jarringly. A bright light, the man in the passenger seat--bearded, craggly, sad eyes. Sam. A woman and a young boy with reddish-brown shaggy hair. Water. Blood. Dean with reptilic eyes... _not_ Dean... a shapeshifter. Yanking a necklace off of the shapeshifter's body. Death. Demons. Destruction.

"Isabel?" Dean demanded, and she felt hands digging into her upper arms. They were removed, a moment later. "Here, come on. Come inside. Sam, you got her?"

"Yeah," Sam answered, "Isabel? You with us, again?" She nodded, and felt him steer her under shade.

She finally opened her eyes just as Sam eased her onto the end of one of the two, queen-sized beds. The room was dim, and smelled a little musty. Probably noticing, Sam went and fussed with the air-conditioner jutting out from beneath the ugly, dull-white venetian blinds.

Dean was placing the room keys on the TV stand. "Feeling better?" he wondered, as he turned around to face her.

She grew irritated and started to snap at him, but ended up sighing instead. "Is the demon going to follow me here?"

Dean's brows went up, and he crossed to sit on the other bed. Sam crossed in front of her, then sat on the other side of the bed she was on, facing both Dean and her. "We can protect you--lay a trap for it at your place," Sam answered her, carefully, "Which means, we'll need to go back there. Are you up for that?"

Isabel turned toward him more, so she didn't have to crane her neck so much, and asked, worriedly, "You can really trap it?"

Dean volunteered, "We use a spell, called the 'Key of Solomon.' If a demon gets underneath or on top of one, they can't move an inch outside of it."

Isabel chewed on her bottom lip. "I don't want..." she began then stopped herself. She wouldn't say that aloud--_'I don't want to die.'_ It might make it come true, or something.

Sam seemed to sense what she'd been about to say because he told her, gently, "We've done this before."

"But if I died there...!" she began, feeling the panic rising. "Won't going back make it happen?" Shoot. She'd said it anyway.

"Listen to me, Izzy," Dean spoke, using the in-charge voice again, "You're not gonna die. You just have to stay sharp, do what we tell you."

His green eyes were intense on her face, and she had to nod before she felt free to look away. "Okay..." she told him weakly, and he seemed to accept that.

"So, what?" he asked Sam, "We just need to get things ready, then head out?"

Sam agreed, adding, "Yeah, we should pack extra holy water... gotta buy some paint for the Key, maybe Isabel can even read the Ritual-- that should be easy enough. Think you can handle the Latin?" He turned toward her, and she offered him a wobbly, uncertain smile.

"What's the 'Ritual'?" she asked, nervously.

"The _Ritual Romano_," Dean said, looking offended, "Come on--don't tell me you've never seen the **Excorcist**?" She barely shook her head, and he threw up his hands and let them drop with a smack back onto his thighs. "I can't believe this."

She giggled, and answered, apologetically, "I don't like scary movies."

Sam chuckled at Dean's disdainful expression. Isabel tried to suppress the smirk that arose from having successfully annoyed the man, without even having to tease him. "I'd better go buy the paint," Sam said, rising, "You two going to be able to keep from choking each other while I'm gone?"

Dean eyed Isabel, pursing his full lips. If he were still a complete stranger to her, she would've gone all gooey inside at that look. But he'd irritated her too much lately for her to be that smitten anymore. She ducked her head in reaction to those thoughts. Then again, maybe not. "I don't know... maybe I should go."

Isabel snorted, and Sam rolled his eyes and opened the door.

He hit the opposite wall before Isabel even had time to gasp. The man from her dream stood there, eyes pitch black, cold hate on his average face. "Son of a--" Dean began, and jumped up, going after the demon-possessed man.

Isabel was on her feet too, staring back and forth at the fighting and then Sam, still and slumped against the wall, long legs sprawled out in front of him. Was he _dead_? Had _that_ been the twist that her dream had chosen to take, or did she still have her death to look forward to? She saw the demon knock Dean to the floor, and didn't think twice about running to the bathroom, and shutting herself in.

Her hands shook violently as she tried to lock the door, wondering how well that stupid, little button-lock was going to hold out against a guy who could fling a six-foot-something man across a room.

"Get out of my way, boy," she heard the demon growl, two voices seeming to be overlayed against each other--one darker and higher-pitched, the other lower and more human. A shiver ran down her spine, and she looked around the bathroom frantically, for some way to escape, maybe the window, or another door.

Another door? Why would there be another door in the bathroom? Well, in houses, sometimes there were other doors, but where would a door in the bathroom of a motel lead to? Outside? She was too scared to even laugh hysterically at the strange, random thoughts.

"No way," she heard Dean huff angrily. "Back off, you--" he was cut off, and strangling sounds began.

Isabel gasped, and started to cry, leaking tears with harsh breathing accompanied, but no sobs. She was beyond scared. And if she went out there, tried to help Dean, then she was definitely going to get herself killed. She wasn't stupid enough to think she was a fighter, love of karate movies aside.

She'd already been through all this with herself, and decided she was just who she was. There was no changing a tiger's stripes, after all. Even as a little kid, she'd been afraid of everything. She'd followed her older brother everywhere, even to the top of an old, metal shed. But when it had come time to get down, she'd been almost too scared to do it. It'd taken her forever to make that jump.

And when she'd gotten older, she'd found that there were even bigger fears to face down. Like having to take responsibility for her life, or actually having to live in the real world and do things, like getting a crappy job just to keep up with the rent. She was living in the dorm now, so it was still pretty easy. All she had to do was keep up with her scholastics, and she could survive. But what would she do when she actually had to go out there to try to make it?

And then there was Dean, getting strangled to death for trying to protect her, and he and Sam were both decent guys who didn't deserve all that pain and horror that seemed to haunt them like some sort of displaced ghost.

She'd never been anything but self-serving and cowardly in her whole life. But right then, in that moment, she knew she'd hate herself forever if she didn't do _something._


	5. Night

**5 - "Night"**

"Where is she?" the demon thundered, and Isabel froze with her hand on the bathroom doorknob.

_'Oh, God,'_ she thought, _'I need something--I can't just go out there barehanded!'_

She glanced around, looking for a weapon, but couldn't see anything but the curtain rod, and how was she supposed to yank _that_ down--she just wasn't strong enough!

She looked around again, desperately, crying, and hyperventilating, and shaking from head to toe. Her eyes fell on the faucet, and the two mouth-rinsing cups set beside the sink, and something popped into her mind.

_"Yeah, we should pack extra holy water..."_ Sam had said, and before, _"You're practically a nun, so this thing can't turn you dark-side. So it's trying to keep you out of the Big War by killing you off beforehand."_

Something clicked in her mind, and she grabbed the two cups, turned on the faucets and let the water run into them as fast as she could make it. She placed the cups on the sink-top, turned the water off, took the cups and prayed, voice trembling, hands shaking so bad the water was spilling over the rims of the over-filled glasses.

"God, p-please bless th-this w-water, in J-Jesus name, amen."

She would've laughed at herself, praying over cups of water like she prayed over her food at every meal, but it was her only hope, and that made it oh, _so_ not funny. She shifted the cup in her left hand to the right, where she held the other cup, and holding on with fingers made vice-like from terror, then opened the door carefully, and peeked out, before shifting the cup back to her left hand.

Dean was being held up against the wall just inside the doorway, by his throat. The demon-possessed man didn't even need to use both hands, he was that strong...

Sam looked like maybe he was beginning to stir, but she knew she shouldn't count on him coming to save them, at the last minute--she had to do this now, and she had to do it quick. Dean was already turning purple from lack of oxygen.

Running forward, and trying not to think about how much it was going to hurt when she got thrown against the wall like a kicked dog, Isabel threw the first cup of "holy" water on the man's neck.

It hissed and steamed, and he let out a hollar and released Dean, stumbling back and grabbing his burning skin. Dean gasped, coughed, and reached for something inside his jacket. He pulled out an old, leather-bound journal and started flipping through pages, with one hand, as he backed Isabel away from the demon with the other.

"Save that water," he said hoarsely. "If he attacks again--throw it at him. I have to concentrate on this spell."

She babbled something in reply. Maybe, "Okay... I'll try..." or "Yeah... Okay." And kept her eyes fixed on the demon, who was just then lifting his head to glare at her with dark, bottomless eyes.

Dean started to speak in Latin, as the demon stepped forward, ignoring the pain he was obviously still feeling. There was a wicked snarl on his lips, and his black-as-sin eyes appraised her as if they knew every single fear hidden beneath.

"Do you really think a little water is going to stop me, _Isabel_?" he asked, the most frightening part of what he said that he pronouced her name with a perfect, Spanish accent.

Dean paused in his chanting to warn, "Don't listen to him--demons lie."

She kept her eyes glued to the demon, and he took another step forward. "Not always," the demon contradicted. "Little Bel... always scared of the dark, running away from your own, _personal_ demons. You would rather go home to a family that barely acknowledges your existence than to stay and become a responsible, _productive_ adult."

He was taunting her, she knew, but it hurt nonetheless. _'Sticks and stones may break my bones... Oh, God... He's going to kill me.'_ He took another step forward, and she lifted the glass of water like a sword.

She'd always been told that all you had to do, if you were a Christian, was to tell the demon to go in Jesus' name. If she did that now, would she find out what sort of hypocrit she really was? She wasn't the most innocent person, despite Sam's assertion that she was practically a nun. She'd done some things, maybe not murder, but enough to leave her conscience guilty, that was for sure.

Dean chanted, and the demon snarled and it's head twisted strangely, seeming to freeze for a moment, another, darker face interposed on top of the human one. Then it stepped closer and reached for Dean, probably trying to knock the journal from his hands.

Isabel screamed and threw the other glass of water at it. The demon fell back, clutching its eyes, and Isabel looked helplessly at Dean as he went on with the Ritual. His hands were shaking too, she realized.

"Stupid, little girl!" the demon growled, "Now you're empty-handed." He'd recovered and was preparing to attack. She knew it, and she couldn't stop it.

But there was something she could maybe do before she hit the wall. "Stop, in the name of Jesus," she said, her voice shaking, but the words made him balk. "Leave him, now," she said, tears and snot streaming down her face.

Dean had paused in his chanting, and the silence before the unearthly scream was almost worse than the demon's hellish voice. And then the man threw up his head as if involuntarily, and a black smoke spewed out, rushing toward the ceiling. It stayed in the room, and Isabel stared up at it in horror.

The man hit the floor with a loud thunk, and Dean, who'd been staring open-mouthed at the ceiling too, snapped out of it and began chanting again. Isabel watched as the incorporeal demon entered the television, flipping the thing on with static that resembled monsters from her worst nightmares. Wailing noises emerged, and the lights in the room flickered on and off.

She stared around her, trying to figure out what was going on. If she'd cast it out, why hadn't it gone back to Hell? And then as the bed began to shake, and a lamp whizzed by her, crashed into the wall, then shattered, Dean's voice rose above the din, and suddenly there was calm and silence.

He'd stopped chanting.

Isabel stared at him, slid to floor and sat there. "Is it... finished?" He nodded, and snapped the journal shut, slipped it back under his jacket, then hurried to check on Sam, who opened his eyes and groaned.

"Dean...!" he exclaimed, sitting up so sharply, he had a near-collision with Dean's forehead. Luckily, his brother was a little more with-it than Sam was right then.

"It's done. It's gone," Dean assured him. "Oh, and Isabel kicked butt too. She's fine." He motioned toward her, with a grin, and helped Sam to his feet.

Sam and he hobbled over to the bed in back of her, and Dean let Sam sit then hauled Isabel to her feet as well. She landed with an audible "oof" beside Sam, and edged away from him before her skin touched any material.

Dean dropped down on his brother's left, and they all sat there staring like shell-shocked war survivors. Then Sam questioned, "You kicked butt, Izzy?"

She giggled nervously at the nick-name, then caught herself before it got out of hand. "I..." She wiped the snot and tears off her face with the back of her coat sleeve. "I was scared to death."

"She told the demon to stop," Dean said, sounding a tad awed, "And the sucker just froze."

"It did?" Sam asked, eyes wide.

Dean nodded. "And then she told it to get the he--to get out of the dude, and it did the black-smoke thing."

"You made it leave with the Ritual," Isabel mumbled. She was actually blushing over his comments, while a moment ago, she was probably as white as a sheet.

"God," Sam said, apparently a little in awe, "No wonder it wanted you dead if you can do _that_ without even having to use a spell."

Isabel let out a huff of air that resembled laughter. Then she noticed the unconscious man on the floor... at least, she _thought_ he was unconscious. "Is he dead?"

Dean and Sam looked to where she pointed. "Oh," Dean said, "Yeah, we should probably move him, so we don't get--On second thought, you guys want to ditch this joint?"

He got up, grinning down at Sam and her, with just a shade of nervousness behind the mischief. He was fidgeting with the ring on his right hand, she noticed. She wondered if it was special... Nah. Probably just something to look cool. Or a family heirloom, she added, with a mental shrug, easing up on her self-defense mechanism. Dean _had_ saved her life, after all.

Then... she could always touch it if she wanted to find out. But when had that quit being a supremely bad idea? Yeah, she'd rather not know.

"We'd better," Sam agreed. "Let the guy think he went on a drinking binge and ended up in a seedy motel."

"Want me to draw lipstick on his face?" Isabel wondered, then could've kicked herself.

"You really are dorky," Dean commented. She narrowed her eyes at him--then smiled. There was only one way left to get him back and to thank him all at once.

"Yes, I am," she replied, and stood up, standing on tiptoes to give him a quick peck on his cheek. The stubble tickled, and she wrinkled her nose and turned away from his surprised gaze. She leaned down and kissed Sam on the cheek also, straighted, glanced at the boys, whose blushing faces were as equally embarrassed as her own.

"Thanks, you two," she said. Then grinned her cheekiest smile at Dean. Oh, yeah, she'd definitely won _that_ match.

- - -

They asked her if she was going to be okay, going back to school on her own, wondering if she was really going to be safe. She'd shrugged nonchalantly and given them the foolhardly reply of, "Don't worry--you both taught me well."

Dean had rolled his eyes, and Sam had given her that uncomfortable smile. Thanks to them, she not only survived the most frightening experience of her life, she wouldn't have to quit school, either. So she'd given them an honest smile in return and gotten in her car.

"Take care," Dean had called after her.

And she'd been so surprised, she hadn't thought of anything to say in time. Because he'd turned away and gotten into the Impala with Sam, before she could form a coherent thought.

And knowing she would never run from anything again, well, not anything important, leastways, Isabel had driven away into the night, until it became a new day, once more.

- end -


End file.
